The safety of vehicle passengers is an important consideration in the interior design of most modern automotive vehicles. When a vehicle suffers an accident, a vehicle passenger can undergo multiple collisions with the interior surfaces of the vehicle. The interior trim of the vehicle can be designed to cushion the impact of such collisions and, in addition, inflatable cushions can be provided which inflate within the interior of a vehicle in order to restrain the passengers in the event of an accident.
However, inflators used to inflate side cushions are normally mounted on a roof-supporting pillar. Since inflators are normally hard objects, this can make it difficult to design the interior trim of a pillar so that the trim will effectively absorb the energy of internal collisions.
It is known to position an inflator in the roof of a vehicle, behind the B-pillar. See, for example, WO 96/07563. The inflator is rigidly supported and, in the event of a collision of the driver's head with the roof, serious head injury may result.